Watchdog says Derriford Hospital still needs to improve

CQC carried out an unannounced inspection of the trust’s emergency department and medical care services

The health watchdog has said a Devon hospital continues to "require improvement".

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) carried out an unannounced inspection at Derriford Hospital in October 2021.

The latest inspection followed a CQC spot check in May 2021 which prompted a demand for "significant and immediate improvements".

The overall rating for University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust remains as "requires improvement".

Some improvements were noted, including leadership at the trust, which moved from "requires improvement" to "good".

CQC's head of hospital inspection, Catherine Campbell, said: "The senior leadership team was open to challenge and understood the problems the service faced.

"However, the impact of a high number of patients attending to receive care, combined with reduced staffing levels in the emergency department, created issues that the trust couldn't solve alone and further support was needed from the local health and social care system."

The inspection found the following:

• Socially distanced chairs redundant as there was no regular checking

• Patients being cared for in areas not intended for clinical use

• Patients on trolleys had no privacy

• Open culture allowed patients, family and staff to raise concerns without fear

• Compassionate leadership demonstrated

• Leaders and staff worked actively with the public to improve services

Ann James, Derriford Hospital's chief executive, said they were still feeling pressures from Covid

Plymouth Hospitals NHS Trust's chief executive Ann James said they were working on the improvements but that pressures had not gone away.

"It is a great concern to all of us that we still will have ambulances waiting an unacceptable amount of time and we continue to treat patients in areas which are suboptimal but until we get our new department, then the improvements we can make will only be small but important improvements in the quality of care and experience."

Ms James added there was a "relentless focus" on minimising ambulance and patient waiting times.

Speaking on behalf of the health and care system, NHS Devon's chief nurse, Darryn Allcorn, said the system had "been working closely to support" the hospital to help reduce the number of patients being admitted and minimise the delays in discharging patients.

This includes commissioning beds in care hotels, offering budgets so friends and families can offer support at home, financial incentives for care workers and a recruitment campaign to attract more people to the sector.

"However, Covid-19 continues to have an impact across the wider health and care system with more staff absent due to Covid-19 and some care homes closed to admissions due to Covid-19 outbreaks," he said.